LeBron James isn’t ready to give up the title of the game’s best player, and few if any careful observers would be willing to take it from him just yet.

But the MVP award is different, in that it’s based solely on a single season’s body of work, and it’s largely subjective.

It would be easy (though perhaps lazy) to cast a first place vote for LeBron once again, considering he’s won the award in four out of the last five seasons. But even James himself seems to be at peace with the fact that Kevin Durant may have had a season more worthy of that historic level of recognition.

LeBron James has won two-straight MVP Awards and four in the last five years, so he knows a thing or two about the type of basketball it takes to earn the NBA’s most coveted individual prize. According to James, Kevin Durant of the Oklahoma City Thunder has done the most to deserve the award.

All but conceding the race to Durant, James said on Wednesday in Memphis that “it would be great” if Durant won the award.

“I think K.D. has had one heck of a season, and if he was rewarded with the MVP, it would be great,” James said. “It would be awesome for him, for his family. It would be a great thing for him. He has played MVP-type basketball.”

James went on to say that Durant has been “the most consistent basketball player as far as MVP this year. He has put up some great numbers.”

This is LeBron simply coming to terms publicly with what most have assumed for the past couple of months.

Durant’s value to the Thunder’s place in the standings, and the ridiculous scoring displays he’s put on to help his team get there are simply more worthy of the award this season that what James has done for the Heat.

It’s by no means a definitive decision as to who is the better player, because most would still side with LeBron if given that choice. But the MVP has a lot that goes into it; the fact that Durant has done enough this season to give voters a legitimate opportunity to erase their penciled-in votes for James is definitely worth celebrating.

In fact, in Saturday’s dunk contest, he didn’t look like a dunker at all.

The Pacers star missed all three attempts of his first dunk, and a Black Panther mask was by far the biggest draw of his second. Oladipo was eliminated after the first round.

Maybe Dennis Smith Jr. wasn’t the only eliminated dunker who left something in his bag. This Oladipo dunk – 180 degrees, throwing ball off the backboard with his left hand while in mid-air, dunking with his right hand – while preparing in Los Angeles was awesome.

A statement released Wednesday by the NFL and NBA clubs says their 90-year-old owner is resting comfortably at Ochsner Medical Center, a hospital which also serves as a major sponsor and which owns naming rights to the teams’ training headquarters.

Benson has owned the New Orleans Saints since 1985 and bought the New Orleans Pelicans in 2012.

In recent years, Benson has overhauled his estate plan so that his third wife, Gayle, would be first in line to inherit control of the two major professional franchises.

Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said he’d be surprised if Kawhi Leonard played again this season, a stark reversal from just a month ago. Back then, even while announcing Leonard was out indefinitely with a quad injury, the San Antonio coach said Leonard wouldn’t miss the rest of the season.

After spending 10 days before the All-Star break in New York consulting with a specialist to gather a second opinion on his right quad injury, All-NBA forward Kawhi Leonard bears the burden of determining when he’s prepared to play again, sources told ESPN.

Leonard has been medically cleared to return from the right quad tendinopathy injury, but since shutting down a nine-game return to the Spurs that ended Jan. 13, he has elected against returning to the active roster, sources said.

The uncertainty surrounding this season — and Leonard’s future which could include free agency in the summer of 2019 — has inspired a palpable stress around the organization, league sources said.

At first glance, this sounds like Derrick Rose five years ago. Even after he was cleared to play following a torn ACL, the then-Bulls star remained mysterious about when he’d suit up. His confidence in his physical abilities seemed to be a major issue, and he was never the same player since (suffering more leg injuries).

But the Spurs famously favor resting players to preserve long-term health. They seem unlikely to rush back Leonard. They might even sit players who want to play more often. And Leonard isn’t Rose.

Still, it’s clear something is amiss in San Antonio. Maybe not amiss enough to end Leonard’s tenure there, but the longer this lingers, the more time for tension to percolate.